


Unwind

by the_witching_hours



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 11:55:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_witching_hours/pseuds/the_witching_hours
Summary: Friendship between McCoy, Kirk and Reader. Helping the crew with their problems can sometimes leave you strung out. You tinker to unwind, no one knows where all the suddenly fixed PADDS keep coming from until…





	Unwind

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the Trek fandom... comments are DEEPLY appreciated

You didn’t have too many secrets from your crewmates; it was hard to keep anything secret in such a close knit group, especially since you were all stuck together on a multi-year mission in space. You didn’t even really mean to keep this a secret, it just never came up, so now, you just sorta kept it hidden by default. It wasn’t like it was embarrassing really, just not something you felt like explaining.

You were by no means an engineer, you preferred to work with people rather than machines most of the time, but when work got overwhelming, you liked to tinker. Something about working on a mechanical project helped you to decompress after work. You were the ship’s psych specialist, so you worked in the medical bay alongside the CMO and nursing staff, but you tended to keep away from the physical doctoring if you could avoid it. Sure you were a Psychiatrist, so you  _ could _ help out in a pinch, but your specialty was helping the crew with their less tangible ailments. You loved your work, the challenge of it was always engaging for you and you loved the feeling that you helped your mates in a way no one else could. But occasionally, you would come across one of your crewmates with a problem that stuck with you, caused you to lose sleep; when this happened, you would tinker with whatever little bit of tech you could find.

You kept old equipment in your closet, like broken communicators, malfunctioning PADDs and a tricorder or two. If you got them to work again, you’d slip them into engineering when no one was looking; no point in keeping it hidden if it worked, but it usually took you a while. Your pet project now was an ancient music player from Earth. You knew it had hundreds of classical pieces on it, and you were determined to get it to play for you. The last time you’d been on earth, you’d found it at an antique store and bought it on a whim. Now it was your mental salvation.

An away team had beamed onto a planet a week ago, and of the 5 people sent, only two came back. You had been a part of the debriefing and had talked to the remaining two members individually afterward; they were in shock and taken to medical so you had promised to come back as soon as they wanted. Of course the two men who had survived and come back to the ship were the two most stubborn and least likely to seek help out of the whole crew: James Tiberius Kirk and Leonard McCoy.

After leaving the men in the med bay, you had gone to your small office and slumped into your chair. You knew you would have a hard time getting those two to admit to needing help, but they were your friends, and you wanted to make sure they were  _ actually _ as ok as they said they were. The two of them were so concerned with taking care of everyone else around them, they neglected their own care to a fault. McCoy, being the CMO would get on Kirk’s case all the time about not taking care of himself, and you would get on McCoy’s case in return. Kirk frequently appeared in the med bay with food for you, knowing you would have forgotten to eat, and he would bring McCoy a drink at the end of a long shift. The three of you looked out for each other, but they would never look for help themselves. There was no way to get them to come to you unless they were ready, so you would have to be patient. You rested your head in your hands and sighed, it was going to be a long couple of days.

Two days later, neither McCoy nor Kirk had spoken to you about the mission, but they both were sporting deep purple circles under their eyes. Kirk, you knew, took everyone’s lives as his responsibility, and having crew members die took an enormous toll on him emotionally; he would feel personally at fault. McCoy, being a doctor, felt responsible if a life slipped through his fingers, thinking that he must have failed to save them. You knew neither of them was going to sleep again if you couldn’t help them, but they hadn’t reached out for help, and it was driving you batty. So there you were, in your cabin, at your desk with an iPod in pieces across the surface.You snapped the outer casing back together and plugged headphones into the jack, crossing your fingers, you tried to turn it on. A second later, an instrumental piece began to play through the headphones and you squealed;  _ it worked _ ! You danced around your room to the beat with a giant smile on your face, you felt a warm sense of accomplishment building inside you; you had done this, taken this broken and abandoned piece of metal, and made it work again.

You were so excited, you didn’t notice your door open. When you twirled, you caught a glimpse of Kirk’s smiling face and froze. Despite the smile, he looked haggard; hair unusually disheveled, scruff on his jaw, and the bags under his eyes were darker. His uniform was rumpled and his posture was slumped; he looked beat up.

“Jim! What’s up?” you asked, hoping you sounded unaffected by his appearance.

“I um… I, I wanted to talk for a bit, if that’s ok with you.” He was looking at the floor now, mumbling his words, but you felt your heart leap.

“Sure,” you said, turning off the iPod and taking out the headphones, “what’s on your mind?” You gestured to the bed as you sat in your desk chair again.

Jim shuffled in and closed the door, he sat on your bed, looking uncomfortable for a second before sighing loudly and resting his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees.

“I can’t sleep Y/N, I can’t… I keep seeing their faces.”

You could hear him holding back tears, and your heart hurt. He really did care about everyone on the ship, and not being able to bring everyone back safely was eating him alive. You crossed the room and sat on the bed next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He turned a bit so he could rest his forehead against your neck and he let the tears fall.

After letting him cry for a bit you spoke up, “Everyone who boards this ship understands the risks Jim. I know what happened, and I know you think it’s your fault, but it’s not.”

“I should have… I don’t even know, I should have protected them. They  _ died _ Y/N, they died.”

“I know they did, and I am so unbelievably angry about it, but I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at the Klingons who killed them.  _ You _ didn’t kill them.You were there for a peace meeting. Their job was to protect you and McCoy, and they did that. It took their lives, but  _ you _ did not kill them.”

“But I--,” Jim started, but you cut him off.

“But nothing. They did their jobs, they performed their duties admirably, and they should receive that credit. Don’t take that away from them by thinking that you failed them. They were there to protect you and McCoy, they knew that. They went on the mission knowing that, so don’t go thinking that you were there to protect them Jim.”

You tighten your arms around him before adding, “You can be sad Jim. You can be angry. You can feel these things, but don’t turn them on yourself. It was  _ not _ your fault.”

Jim lets out a quiet sob before turning his face into your shoulder again. He doesn’t hear your door, but you look up to see Leonard McCoy silhouetted there. Releasing one of Jim’s shoulders, you hold your free arm out to McCoy with a small smile. He comes into your embrace as well and sighs softly. He doesn’t say anything so you just repeat what you were saying to Jim. 

“It wasn’t your fault. You did what you went down there to do. The Klingons attacked. You were not in control of that. It was them that shot and killed the crew, not you. It was not your fault.” You heard no noise, but you felt tears dampen the shoulder McCoy rested on.

The two men stay with you for a while, not really crying anymore, just resting and soaking in the reassurance you gave them. After a while, you all moved out of the embrace and lounged around the room separately. Leonard and Jim eventually opening up and talking about what was going on in their heads. You talked them through everything, reassured where needed and gave tough love when necessary.

It had been at least an hour when they both looked calm again. You had to shoo Leonard out of your bed when he looked like he was going to pass out there, reminding him he had his own bed just down the hall. He chuckled before pulling you into a hug and thanking you. When he left you turned to Jim, who smiled at you before pulling you into another hug.

“Hey Y/N?” He asked, still holding you close.

“Yeah?”

“What were you doing with that iPod?”

“Uh…”

“How’d you even find one that works?” He released you from the hug, going to your desk to investigate, “They cost a fortune if you get a good one.”

“It wasn’t working when I bought it.”

“Did Scotty fix it? No way, he wouldn’t fix the one I found,” Jim was pouting, still looking over your desk, “wait, did… did  _ you _ fix it?” He was noticing the tools on your desk now, and looking around he saw the box of old equipment sticking out of your closet door. He crossed to it then, looking down into it then looking at you.

“Well yeah. I like to mess with stuff like that. It helps me unwind.”

He didn’t respond right away, but pulled out his communicator.

“Kirk to engineering. Scotty you there?”

“Aye Captain, what ya need?”

“I think i figured out who’s been fixing all those comms and PADDs you keep finding.”


End file.
